


sweetheart i confess

by piggy09



Series: boxes [3]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3891586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hello,” she says again, desperate for her child to know her. “My name is Helena. I am your mother, little angel. I love you very much.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweetheart i confess

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: reference to rachel/paul scene]

Helena wakes up from a dream where she is drowning. A sunbeam hits her right between the eyes, like being blinded. She rolls over onto her side and remembers why she was dreaming of the bottoms of wells: it’s because she has been thrown in this prison-cage, far far underground. Down in the dirt with the bodies and the worms. She smears hands down her face and grunts a scream, because: another cage! Another box! She would break something, if there was anything to break – if there was anything but walls and bed and Helena on side on the bed, curled in on herself like a baby.

Oh.

She rolls back onto her back and presses a hand to her stomach. Deep beneath Helena’s skin and scars something is stirring. She can feel it. She holds her breath to listen to the world outside of her belly, for a moment, but no one is there – no one cares about Helena, except when they need someone to lie to. Except when they need someone to feel better than, all these dirty soldiers. But now they have thrown Helena into this box, and said: _wait_. So it is just Helena and the life that is slowly growing inside of her, the life that everyone wants.

“Hello,” she whispers – she doesn’t know what language she is speaking in, but she does not really think it matters. She and her child, they understand each other. She traces pointless patterns in the skin of her stomach, circles and flowers and looping shapes that are always whole, that are never incomplete. It makes her heart ache, but she continues anyways.

“Hello,” she says again, desperate for her child to know her. “My name is Helena. I am your mother, little angel. I love you very much.”

There’s no answer, but she wasn’t expecting one. She trails her fingers along her belly, over and back and around, the only sort of comfort she has ever known how to give herself. That closed circle of skin.

“I think they will try to take you away from me,” she whispers. “They want you, little angel, but they do not love you. They want all the things inside of you, but they do not want your soul.”

“I won’t let them,” she says, a little louder now, tears stinging in her eyes. “My angel, my little _mavpa_ , they can do their best to break me but I will not let them take you. I _promise_.”

Something stirs under Helena’s fingers, and she puts her hand flat against her stomach. She can feel the sweat drying under her shirt. It is very hot here.

“Would you like to hear a story,” she whispers. “Once upon a time there was a girl who was trying to be brave. She was trying very hard, but someone big and bad said: _no_. So they took the little girl and they threw her in a hole, just like this one.”

She pauses, licks her lips. She is thinking about wells, and she wants water very much. But there is none here. She swallows and keeps talking, spinning the thread of the story out of her dry, cracked throat.

“She was alone in the dark, and she was afraid,” Helena says. “But the little girl had friends, friends who loved her very much. And they – and they—”

She stops, wipes salt water away from her eyes with the back of her hand. She can’t cry; her baby will think this is a sad story, and that is not right. This is not a sad story. This is a happy story. It is. It has a happy ending.

“And they reached down into the hole, and they pulled the girl out of the dark,” she whispers. “They gave her so much food, little _mavpa_. Sandwiches and hot things to drink, and they gave her hope that was sharp like a stinger.”

“…but mostly food,” she says guiltily. “Do you know about food? I will tell you.”

She does. She whispers a long low stream of words to the life that is growing inside of her, tells her baby about Jell-O and roast chicken, pancakes and gummy worms, apples that crunch when you bite into them. Potato chips. Lollipops. She talks and talks as much as she can, because there is a part of her that is afraid that she will give birth to her child here, in this place. What if they take her baby away from her? What if her baby does not know her, when it comes out? She has to believe that telling stories will be enough for her own child to recognize her. She has to.

She whispers to the baby about her life, about growing up – she leaves out all of the sad parts, so that goes by very quickly. She says that she went on a big adventure, all over the world, and that she did sad things but in the end she made a very important friend.

“Her name is Sarah,” she says. “She is my sister. One day you will meet her, angel. She is our family. You will like her, I think.”

She tells stories of Sarah, but then she runs out of those too. So she lies on her back and stares at the light of the sun through slitted eyes, sings an old lullaby. Rubs her hand over her belly and sings to her little falcon, her little dove. When the song ends, she starts it over. She has only ever known one lullaby.

Helena is on maybe the third or fourth or fifteenth time singing about The Dream and Sleep – _Oy khodyt' son, kolo vikon,_ _A drimota kolo plota_ – when she hears a rumbling. Something is happening. Something is coming. Soon they are going to want Helena again – she can smell it, in the air, something like hurting. She stands up and walks over to the little cell window. Outside, dust settles.

Helena closes her eyes and hears: nothing. They are not coming for her yet. She peels herself away from the window, rolls her lips between her teeth – they taste like metal, which is not the same thing is blood – and lies back down on the bed. She rubs her hand back and forth over her belly, back and forth.

“Go to sleep, now,” she whispers. “There will be big bad people soon, and I do not want you to be afraid.” More than this: Helena will have to be big and bad right back, to keep them from hurting her baby. She does not want her child to have to see the things she does. She does not want her child to ever have to know things like blood and bones and screams.

To help, to show the way, Helena sprawls on her back and goes to sleep too. In and out go the breaths through her chest, as sweat stings along all of her scars. Sarah and Sarah and Sarah and Helena and her baby, dreaming to pass the time.

She is woken up by footsteps walking through the door, but she stays-sleeping anyways just to make sure…yes, her baby is not moving. Things are alright. But she continues to play dead. Why not.

The footsteps stop at the door. If Helena was still tracking, she could turn to someone and say: _this is not my prey. This is a man, wearing boots. He is a soldier – hear the way he stops and starts, like a pretty clockwork thing?_ But she is not a soldier anymore, and her war was never a holy one. So there is no one to whisper to.

(If Pupok was here, she could still say it. Footsteps and weight and where she could hurt to make that weight fall. But she snapped at Pupok and Pupok went away. There is no one to tell. Helena would not tell her baby about hurting.)

She’s pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of one big long sniff. Helena has stopped breathing in through her nose – it smells like bodies left in the dark, like sweat and dirt and nastiness. The man outside the door is welcome to the smell. She does not want any of it. She opens her eyes lazily, turns to look – it is another Mark-face, this one with his hair swooping up like it is trying to escape.

She doesn’t blame it. She would also escape, if she was trapped on a head like _that._

“Thought you’d smell like Sarah,” says Mark-face. Helena wants to bury her face in her pillow, scream – she knows what Sarah smells like, and it is not anything like this. They are trying the same thing the doctor was trying; it’s like they have taken Helena apart, and found the shiny red button on her heart that says _Sarah_. Now they are pressing that button over and over and over again, because it is _so_ shiny and _so_ red. But they are trying too hard. It is very sad.

 _But:_ if they would like to try to hurt Helena by talking about her family, Helena can try to hurt them right back. Just as big and just as bad.

“Another one,” she says, through her dry, tired throat. “You are the ugliest Mark yet.”

He sneers, but just leans forward to the barred window. “Tell me something,” he says. “Sarah Manning, the gatherer of sisters – when she sold you out, when she gave you to us, that must have been quite a blow.”

He is trying _so hard_. It’s like he thinks Helena can’t smell the desperation, under all that sweat. She stands up, absentmindedly scratches some of that stink out of her nose. Wanders up to the door.

“You come inside, I tell you about it,” she tells Mark-face. You come inside, I give you another pretty scar just like that one. It is _very_ pretty. How much do you know about scars, Mark-face? I know all there is to know about scars. About bleeding.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, like he is very sad. “there is nothing more that I would love.” They stare at each other, for a second, and Helena squints her eyes a little to see if she can see the collar around this man’s neck. Helena can’t get out of the box, because she is trapped inside of it. This man, this not-Mark, he cannot get into the box. There must be another box. If she could only see it—

“That’s enough,” says a new voice – it is not a Mark-voice, so Helena does not know it. Not-Mark Mark-face glares at her, for a second, and then steps back from the door. There is the collar, there is the dog, there is – _Paul?_ Oh, this is _very_ funny. The last time Helena saw Paul he was collared like a dog, with Rachel’s hands around his throat. Dogs owning dogs, now. Woof woof.

There goes not-Mark, stepping back from the door with his soldier-feet in place and his soldier-spine all straight. Helena doesn’t move, just because she doesn’t have to.

“Just getting to know the enemy, Major,” he says, all angry.

“You have an assignment,” says Paul. “I will brief you so this time you don’t stray.”

Ooh, he _strayed_. What a naughty soldier boy. Helena feels like laughing; instead she clucks her tongue, _tsk tsk tsk_. What a shame, to disobey orders. What a bad soldier this man is. And if you are a soldier who is not a good soldier…what are you? What good are you?

They stare at each other, the soldier and not-the-soldier, until not-Mark turns on his heel and leaves. Paul moves to follow him, but – he is the closest Helena can get to her sister, right now, and he is the closest Helena can get to _out_. Out of this cage. Out out out.

“Dirty Paul,” she croons, watching the patch of dirt between his shoulders move as he turns around. Dirty dirty. “He lies with my _sestras_. Even _Rachel_.”

(She wonders if he knew that she knew. Probably not. _Oops_.)

She watches the sad dog look in his eyes, the way he walks closer. She can smell shame on him, taste it on her tongue.

“Come inside,” she whispers, like he would really open the door and let her out. She licks her palm, one long stripe – it washes the taste of shame out of her mouth, replaces it with dirt and sweat and what not-Mark said smelled like Sarah. Her mouth tastes like dirt. She is sure dirty Paul would like it.

“Have another,” she says, and watches. And waits. If you will use Sarah against me I will use Sarah against you too. She hopes Paul is _ashamed_ , that she is down here. She hopes he is very, very sad. Poor Paul. _Poor_ Paul.

“You won’t believe me,” Paul says (she doesn’t), “but…I am sorry it has come to this.”

Well, that means nothing. That is the saddest thing Helena has ever heard, in that it is not sad at all. Dull dull dull. She hums: _mm_. Alright. Whatever you say.

“One day,” she says, “I kill you all.” She makes her hand into a weapon again, points it out the bars. Makes her mouth into a weapon too. The noise of guns follows Paul out, as she aims for the back of his head, the base of his spine. Everyone here is so bad at threats. Helena could teach them a thing or two, in how easily her hand makes a gun. In a way she is lucky: they have been hurting her body, and she is very lucky they (like Sarah) are bad at aiming at her heart. But still. It leaves her frustrated, angry that she is locked in a cage by such sad little soldiers.

Paul leaves, and the door closes behind him. Helena unmakes her hand a weapon and slumps against the wall, sighs. She should probably stop teasing them. That is no way to get food, and she is (eating for two now) very hungry. She makes her way back to the bed, flops on her back. She uses her hand to shade her eyes from the white heat of the sun overhead; she doesn’t feel quite right, bringing her hand back to her belly. Not yet. Not when it is still hot from all of those bullets.

Her stomach growls. Helena’s hand clenches, above her head, and then slowly and tenderly she brings it down to cup her belly.

“It will be alright,” she hums, a sing-song. “I will protect you. You will never have to be afraid of me, I promise.”

Above them the sun is beating down, a lone point of light in all that dark. Soon the sun will go down and Helena will be in the dark again. All she has to do is wait, and that hot bright sun will set. All Helena has to do is lie here and wait for the darkness to find her.

They lie there, Helena and her child. As Helena sings them both to sleep she keeps her eyes focused on the light overhead, waiting and waiting for the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Sweetheart I confess  
> This doesn't quite feel real just yet  
> My broken body says take your time  
> And my heart says I can't take another step 
> 
> Without holding you  
> I know that you can't come soon  
> They will take my sanity but  
> They won't take the love I have for you 
> 
> Please don't leave me  
> Please don't hold your breath and die  
> When everything is gone again  
> Maybe you could be the love of my life  
> \--"[The Love of My Life](http://eorroxsox.tumblr.com/post/117043319292/i-realize-i-just-posted-this-but-it-looks-so-much)," Jenna Mason-Brase
> 
> This week's song is actually about Helena singing to her baby, made by a very talented Clone Club fan musician. You should listen to it -- it was definitely inspiration for this fic.
> 
> Please leave kudos + comments if you liked! Thanks for reading!


End file.
